


Lioness

by 221b_careful_what_you_wish_for



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Challenge Response, F/M, Gen, Pre-A Study in Pink, Rivalry, Sally falls for it - but only once, Sexual Tension, Sherlock turns on the charm, Sickfic, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 10:05:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2146665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_careful_what_you_wish_for/pseuds/221b_careful_what_you_wish_for
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Let's Write Sherlock Challenge 15<br/>"Trope Bingo" --  This is trope 4 of 5.</p><p>While recuperating from a car accident, Sally Donovan reflects back on her antagonistic relationship with Sherlock Holmes. Do they hate each other, or spur each other on? And why Sally won't be fooled again by Sherlock's charm.  (No romance to be found here, but mind games, yes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lioness

**Author's Note:**

> Trope: sickfic

“What is your name? Can you tell me your name?”

The man’s patient but insistent voice kept repeating the same basic question, fading in and out as if his head were bobbing up and down in water. She tried to swim toward the calm voice, but her limbs were too heavy. Her eyes opened, mere slits. Why was she lying down? She caught fragments of bright lights strobing red and blue, people rushing by, gloved hands pressing things against her. She tried to move her mouth, her tongue thick. “S-Sally Donovan,” she managed to respond before passing out.

*****

Two days later she awoke in a quiet, dimly lit room. There was a plastic bracelet around her wrist, something clipped to her finger, tubes, a blank television screen. Her head hurt. Everything hurt. There was a squeak of shoes, a woman’s face peering into hers.

“Miss Donovan. You’re awake,” the face smiled.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in hospital. You were in an accident. A car hit your car. Well, not your car, but the police car you were in. How are you feeling?”

“Terrible,” Sally muttered, slowly remembering the impact. “DI Lestrade -- is he--?”

“A bit bruised up, but he’s fine. I’m afraid you got the worst of it. But I hear they caught him, the criminal you were chasing.”

Sally smiled with satisfaction, but even that small motion proved painful.

“Just rest,” the nice face said as Sally began to fade again. Her eyes hazily landed on a bouquet of purple flowers, the name of which she couldn’t remember, another vase with white and yellow roses. Cards. And on the nightstand a small porcelain figurine of a lion. A female lion. Lioness, that was the word.

Her eyes closed, then snapped open. _Lioness_.

“Who brought that?” she asked weakly, trying to point at the figurine.

The nurse looked at it, knitted her brows. “I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing that.”

There was only one person alive who could have left that here. Had she dreamed about a dark swirl of coat? _How did he -- dammit,_ Sally thought before falling into the black hole again.

*****

Sally’s mind was playing tricks on her. What day was it? Was she awake? Of course she was. She was at work, and there was Greg Lestrade, right there, on his phone, standing next to the body.

And there he was, the arrogant bastard in his long coat and posh suit, peering down at the crime scene, frozen in place, looking at God knows what. Why did Lestrade even allow him here? It was completely against protocol, not to mention insulting to her profession, to have an outsider prowling around, interfering. So what if he’d help crack four cases so far? He was just lucky. Eccentric, odd, she mentally tallied as she watched him. Rude.

They passed each other. “Sergeant,” he said icily.

“Freak,” she nodded back.

He shot her a sidelong glance that was unreadable and she kept walking.

Now it was a winter day, a different case. Sally was glaring at Sherlock, who’d just ripped apart her suggestion about the suspect’s motive, shredding it point by point in front of her boss and colleagues. She could feel her jaw jutting out, her fist clenching.

“Donovan!” Lestrade barked at her. “Get this to forensics. Now.” He held out an evidence envelope and she snatched it from his hand, knowing very well he was giving her an out before she did something stupid.

“Go easy on my people, will you?” Sally heard Lestrade chastise Sherlock as she strode away. She felt her cheeks burning, humiliated.

It went on like this: each time she and Sherlock crossed paths, they crossed swords, trading insults, eye rolls, glares. Lestrade could only sigh wearily. “Would you two grow up?”

Sally hadn’t been able to unearth Lestrade’s connection to Sherlock, or why he trusted a self-proclaimed consulting detective, whatever the hell that was. It was the one glaring fault she found in Lestrade, whom she otherwise admired.

But Sally wasn’t about to back down. She took every opportunity to outdo Sherlock -- working late, getting to files first, accessing sources before he could. Whenever she won, she gloated, delighting in seeing him frown or turn on his heel in silent fury. But he always found a way to get back, upping the ante yet again. They had become firm adversaries.

*****

Sally surfaced briefly, felt hands checking her injuries, heard voices, drifted back to her swirling thoughts about work and the tall, infuriating obstacle to her career.

Her antagonistic alliance with Sherlock wavered only once, a memory she preferred not to think about. But the painkillers were letting loose all sorts of thoughts in her head, and her mind wandered back to one late night.

She was in the evidence storage room, a place she didn’t exactly have permission to be. She was scanning the labels of storage boxes, trying to locate the right one, hoping to have a firsthand look at some items related to a case that had gone cold. She was on tiptoe, her hands just reaching out to lift a box from a high shelf when an arm extended past her and held the box in place.

She gasped, startled, then recognized the long fingers, the expensive cut of the dark suit jacket. “How did you get in here?” she seethed.

“Oh, desk clerks can be distracted, passcodes broken,” Sherlock looked pointedly at her, “a supervisor’s signature forged…”

She drew her mouth into a tight line, kept one hand on the box. “I was here first.”

He smirked. “But now I’m here.”

“So, what, we’re going to fight over it?” She held his gaze, refusing to remove her hand.

“Hmm, now that could be interesting,” he lowered his arm. “But considering you grew up scraping with three older brothers and have some weapons expertise, I’ll defer this time.”

She stared at him. “How do you know about my brothers?”

He shrugged. “Careful observation.”

She never talked about her family. Now her arm lowered as she faced him. “There’s no way you could know that.”

“Just like I couldn’t know you’re a red wine drinker, prefer dogs over cats, attend pilates classes rather irregularly, sneak an occasional cigarette, and broke up with your last boyfriend, what, about four months ago?”

She glared at him. “Who told you all that?”

He looked back at her. “You did. Everything about you tells me things."

“You’re mad,” she said defensively, angrily. “Creeping about in people’s lives -- spying on them.”

“I really don’t have the time or inclination to spy on everyone in London,” he said drily.

“Then it’s a trick.”

“Not a trick. Merely deductive reasoning.”

Sally felt every frustration boil up inside of her and she lashed out verbally. “I don’t know what you have over Lestrade or why he lets you near this place, but I don’t like it. I don’t like you. Nobody likes you. Nobody wants to work with you. You’re a --”

“Freak,” he supplied the word for her, and she saw something pass across his face, a wince, almost, before sliding back to a cold gaze. “So I’ve been told numerous times.”

They stared at each other hostilely, and she couldn’t stop her venomous words. “Is this what you get off on? Murder? Death? Is that why you hang around here?”

His eyes flashed and he leaned in closer, crossing a boundary of personal space that made Sally highly aware of his body wound as tightly as a spring. “You’ve no idea what I get off on,” his voice was low, terse. “You might be surprised.”

Sally felt herself flush under his unwavering gaze, taken aback at how quickly he had just transformed into something suggestive, dangerous, sexually charged. She’d never thought of him in that way, but now was transfixed by the intensity of his eyes and the sensual curve of his mouth.

She forced her eyes lower, only to land on his throat, the tendons of his neck tensed above his open collar, the top buttons of his shirt as strained as the atmosphere in the room. She swallowed, then lobbed a desperate insult. “So there is warm blood in your veins. I didn’t think you... liked... women, or men."

He shifted a millimeter closer, fully understanding her euphemism. “True, I don’t _like_ many people.” His gaze raked down her face to her chest where a blush was spreading, then lower, assessing.

"You’ve a tattoo somewhere… and more freckles, I imagine… Where, exactly, might those be?" he mused silkily before letting his gaze travel slowly back up to her eyes. "You’re reasonably intelligent, ambitious. Who knows? Under different circumstances, we might have liked each other. And I’ll wager you enjoy being… _liked_."

She felt perspiration prickling her brow, found herself unconsciously drawn to him, irrationally imagining his fingertips trailing across her collarbone and down the deep V of her blouse.

“You’re a risk-taker,” he murmured, leaning even closer, dropping the words into her ear, but not touching her. “If things were different, we might have... coordinated our efforts, maybe against that wall, or bent over that table right there...”

Sally closed her eyes against a sudden vivid image of her skirt hastily bunched up around her hips, his hand sweeping back the loose mass of her hair, his mouth on her neck, the table groaning in protest. It would be quick, rough, incredibly unwise, searingly hot.

Sherlock lingered over her as if reading her thoughts, the space between them as sultry and unstable as a summer storm. Her eyes felt heavy, and she nearly laid a palm on his chest, almost raised her head to seek out his lips.

“But that will never happen,” he finished flatly, drawing back.

She opened her eyes fully, the trance broken. “You think I’m a bitch,” she said bitterly, suddenly feeling exposed at every level.

“No. I think you’re relentless. Protective. Fierce. A hunter.” A faint smile played around his lips as he slid the box from the shelf in one fluid movement. “A lioness.”

He turned and left the room, leaving her staring dumbly after him, both stunned by the loaded conversation that had left her weak in the knees and shocked by the fact that he was boldly walking away with police evidence. It took her several moments more to realize she'd just been outplayed. 

*****  
Sally woke, her eyes gradually adjusting to the dark. The car pursuit, the intersection, the crash, the surgery... still in hospital. She turned her head, the vases of flowers seeming to have multiplied exponentially.

She shifted, winced. Her right leg now had several pins in it. She had a long, daunting recovery ahead. She sighed, feeling discouraged. Her eyes rested on the lioness figurine, and she envied its lithe grace and power. She noticed a small card next to it, reached out, and pried open the envelope with her thumb.

One line on white linen paper, familiar uneven handwriting: _You’ll be hunting again soon._

She reread the card and slowly lowered it into her lap. _Damn him,_ she thought with a harsh fondness reserved only for the best of foes.

**Author's Note:**

> So my little head canon for this story is that Sally and Sherlock don't like each other, but they grudgingly have some respect for each other. Their rivalry ultimately makes them better detectives. It's another game, and they'll each do almost anything to win. More thoughts in the comments below. Feel free to add yours. She's a complex character.


End file.
